Third Grade Michigan’s Digging Into the Past
Lesson 5
Title: Introduction to Early Michigan History
Unit of Study: Third Grade Digging Into the Past
Abstract: The students will be introduced to the way in which Michigan got its shape was well
as the earliest settlements in Michigan, utilizing information from primary and secondary
resources.
GLCEs:
H3.0.1 Identify questions historians ask examining the past in Michigan.
G1.0.2 Use thematic maps to identify and describe the physical and human characteristics of
Michigan.
Introductory/ Preparatory Lesson for:
H3.0.7 Use a variety of primary and secondary sources to construct a historical narrative
about daily life in the early settlements of Michigan (pre-statehood).
Key Concepts: timeline, decade, century, settlements, shelter, tribe, narrative, glacier, peninsula,
ice age
Sequence of Activities- (approximately 30 minutes)
1. Students will (quickly) draw a map of Michigan from memory (make sure no maps of
Michigan are showing).
2. Ask students if drawing the map was easy or hard. Discuss what made it easy/hard.
3. Show a real map of Michigan, have students compare their maps to the real maps. How
accurate are their maps (i.e. did they remember to put in the Upper Peninsula?)
4. Ask students what other state would be easy to draw from memory and why do they think
it would be easy. (Florida for example)
5. Discuss that states that are peninsulas are easier to draw because of the surrounding
water.
6. Have students brainstorm (or write down on a sticky note) how they think Michigan got
its shape (how the Great Lakes were formed). Share ideas with the whole class or in a
small group (illicit some large group answers).
7. Go to http://www.emporia.edu/earthsci/student/damery1/gl_form.html to read about how
the glaciers formed the Great Lakes.
8. Watch short video clip showing the glacial formation in Michigan and the formation of
the great lakes. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibTWQogsbL8
Sequence of activities- (approximately three 30 minute lessons)
1. The teacher will introduce the Paleo, Archaic, and Hopewell Indian tribes as Michigan’s
earliest inhabitants (Be sure to read Introducing Michigan’s Past).
2. The students will investigate these early settlements, using the background information
and/or the books on the suggested resources list.
Calhoun ISD Social Studies Curriculum Design Project
Third Grade Michigan’s Digging Into the Past
3. The class will work together to record information on a graphic organizer about each of
the settlements. A brief discussion of questions historians ask can be held as the resource
web is passed out. Students may add one or two relevant questions of their own.
4. The students will discuss in small groups what their lives would have been like if they
had grown up in one of the particular tribes or cultures.
5. Each student will create a page to add to a class created book about one of the three
settlements. The teacher will model writing a good paragraph about one of the tribes
from a resource web, and each student will write a one paragraph as if he or she is a child
in one of the tribes. The information from the resource web will be used by the student.
6. As the pages are completed, the teacher will compile them for a class book, which can
then be added to the class library.
Connections:
English Language Arts- Students write a letter to someone explaining how to find Michigan on a
map and why it has its unique shape, incorporating the terms glaciers, peninsula, ice age.
Mathematics
Instructional Resources:
Equipment/Manipulative
Student Resources
Teacher Resources
Books:
 Introducing Michigan’s Past, an Overview for Teachers by Michigan History Magazine
Available via www.sos.state.mi.us/history/mag or 1.800.366.3703 Pages 6 & 7 of this
FREE publication are particularly useful.
 Atlas of Great Lakes Indian History by Tanner, Helen Hornbeck (Editor) Norman, OK;
University of Oklahoma Press, 1987
 The Woodland Indians of the Western Great Lakes by Robert E. Ritzenthaler
 Woodland Indians (Illustrated Living History Series) by C. Keith Wilbur
 Eastern Woodland Indians (Native Americans) by Mir Tamim Ansary
Websites:
 www.woodlandindianedu.com
 www.chsbs.cmich.edu/charles_hastings/Links/links344.htm#Paleo_Indian
Other possible Resources:
 Sea to Shining Sea: Michigan by Dennis Brindell Fradin
 The Legend of Michigan by Trinka Hakes Noble
 American Indian Reference and Resource Books for Children and Young Adults by
Barbara J. Kuipers
 Michigan Studies Weekly (weekly newspaper)
 GREATSTATE (for your state, Michigan) – monthly newspaper
Calhoun ISD Social Studies Curriculum Design Project
Third Grade Michigan’s Digging Into the Past
Organizing Information from Our Historical Research
When did
they live?
How were
they like us,
and how
were they
different?
What do we
know about
the lives of
the people in
this group?
Name of
Indian
Culture
What is
important to
remember
about this
group?
What
happened to
them?
Why did it
happen?
Calhoun ISD Social Studies Curriculum Design Project
Third Grade Michigan’s Digging Into the Past
Calhoun ISD Social Studies Curriculum Design Project